Greater Manchester Endorses FranchisingWorks Project

Source:

Shaftesbury

The Shaftesbury Partnership have recently completed their feasibility study with Manchester and Salford City Councils for FranchisingWorks, a social enterprise that will connect people facing unemployment to robust franchise businesses and help them to obtain the funding to start up a franchise.

The proposal was introduced by the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council, Sir Howard Bernstein, to his counterparts in the 9 other Councils in the Greater Manchester Region at a meeting of AGMA (Association of Greater Manchester Authorities) on 25 June, where it was well-received. The leadership of all the Greater Manchester councils have agreed that The Shaftesbury Partnership should run a pilot to prove the FranchisingWorks concept by creating 50 new franchise businesses over the next 18 months.

We are now working with several potential investors to raise money for the Franchise Licence Investment Fund that will purchase the franchise business licences that participants on the programme will operate. This is no easy feat but we remain confident that we will be in a position to launch this exciting project in the near future.

In addition to our work in Greater Manchester, FranchisingWorks has won a smaller contract to advise Durham Council over the next six months on the development of its own franchising programme, Be Franchising.